


Down the Serpentine

by SongsInTheSeptry



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angry!Sansa, Bitter!Sandor, F/M, Gentle the Rage Inside Him, In Character, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, Queen Sansa, Queen in the North, Retconning Things That Made Me Uncomfortable About SanSan, Sandor Clegane - Freeform, Sansa Stark - Freeform, Steel and Storm, The One Where They Talk A lot, Unfluffy Smut, What hounds to to wolves, What wolves do to hounds, sansan, serpentine - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28378470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongsInTheSeptry/pseuds/SongsInTheSeptry
Summary: The Queen in the North meets Sandor Clegane for the first time since King's Landing.  She wants him in her service, but he is bitter and angry.Turns out, so is she.This fic follows SanSan in Winterfell, with some 'inner demon work' and some shameless smut.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 87





	1. No True Knights

The Queen sat in her chambers, a goblet of wine at her knuckles, untouched. She wore long robes of stormy grey, embroidered direwolves standing sentry on her sleeves, waiting for a threat. Her head was lowered, poring over the week’s updates on rations, trade, and progress on the castle and the lands around it.

Her fingers worried the rolls of parchment, tracing hastily scratched letters with pale fingers uselessly, insistently. She squared her shoulders, her mouth a resolute line, and re-read a line at random. _The repairs on the Bell Tower continue, and the reinforcements of the Hunter’s Gate will be underway ..._

The Queen sighed, pushing the rolls away from her, running her hands through her thick auburn hair instead. Being a queen at twenty was hard work. The truth was, she had not been able to concentrate on much of anything in the last few days, ever since she had heard of his arrival at Winterfell.

She had not seen him since her time at King’s Landing. Thinking of that place, the Queen let out a shaky breath, for it held some power over her still. _But why is that so, when I have been burned by greater fires since then_ , she asked herself absent-mindedly, hands circled resolutely over her goblet, still untouched.

King’s Landing … where her brother Bran now ruled everything but the North. Of course, the Queen knew that the man who ruled had nothing in him of the young, wilful brother she grew up with. Jon, too, had changed in some ways, although she was not surprised that he had refused the crown offered to him after the Long Night. After all, Robb had once wanted to name him his heir, Jon had said, but he had refused. In his stead, the Great Council had decided that the throne should go to Jon’s closest male relative, which is why the man who used to be her brother now ruled the Six Kingdoms, and why Jon was north of the North, his claim to his Targaryen blood abandoned, his wilding brethren at his side. The Queen thought of Jon, Ghost at his side to protect him, finally free, and felt a flicker of something like envy. She should have thought of Lady, then, she knew, but instead she thought of the old, blind dog she had been with at the Fingers. He had protected her once, from Marillion. He had never left her side.

She got up suddenly, a decision made, her robes a flurry behind her as she took quick strides to her door.

“Lady Brienne,” she said to the large woman standing outside.

“Your Grace?”, Brienne asked.

The Queen stood rooted to the spot, changing her mind half a dozen times before she finally spoke, her voice steady.

“Bring me Sandor Clegane”.

Brienne’s mouth twitched, whether in surprise or distaste the Queen did not know. At the moment, though, she did not care. Brienne recovered smoothly, though, bowing her head in silence as she lumbered off towards the stone staircase.

She thought of another stone staircase, one she almost fell down once - serpentine, treacherous. A rough voice, rasping into her ears, “One day I’ll have a song from you, whether you will it or no.” She remembered saying, “I will sing it for you gladly”, and she wondered if it was true now, as much as it had been untrue then.

The Queen went back to her room, closing the door behind her with a silent sigh. Shakily, she sat back down again, draining her goblet of its sour red in one go. She winced, unaccustomed to drinking for the sake of drinking. She thought it a weakness, and yet, she couldn’t deny that the sudden thrill of something dark in her veins didn’t excite her.

As she waited, the Queen thought of many things from what felt like another life. She thought of songs long-forgotten, and felt uneasy when they came to her lips unbidden, after all these years. She thought of cold stone floors in King’s Landing, of Harrold Hardyng and his cloyingly sweet kisses, and of maddening eyes, stormy as the grey of her robes.

There was a knock at the door.

“Enter”, the Queen said, making herself sound stronger than she felt.

Brienne entered the solar, her height and bulk unable to disguise the man behind her. She stepped away, and it did not escape the Queen that Brienne had come further into her chambers, rather than stepping out of them. She turned her attention back to the man.

He was massive, a dark stillness that covered the entire door frame. His hair was long, swept over the ruins of the left side of his face, his lips half-there, a mottled redness outlining one eye. His chest heaved slightly, strong muscles working underneath a rough-spun tunic, a flicker of curiosity in his eyes.

“Thank you, Brienne. You may leave us be”.

“Your Grace, I think it might -”

“Thank you,” she emphasized bluntly, and Brienne bowed once more, closing the door behind her with a reluctance noticed only by the Queen.

The door clattered shut, and then there was silence. She had tried to read his expression, then, but other than the initial questioning flicker in his gaze, his face was impassive. The two figures studied each other, standing tall and steady, like steel blades touched before slaughter.

“Sandor Clegane,” the Queen said evenly, deliberately. “Welcome back to Winterfell”.

The man eyed her with an openness she was unused to now, as Queen. Men usually kept a sacred distance from her, as though her porcelain skin was ivory at best, steel at worst.

“Your Grace,” he grunted, and then, almost as an afterthought, “Never liked the bloody North, to tell you the truth.”

His voice undid a tether deep in her somewhere, bringing back too much that was stowed away in the dark. Fires, jousts, cloaks, it all came back, and she had to work to maintain composure, to unreel the thread that had frayed, to knot it back into place.

What he saw was the Queen standing still as glass, cocking her head at the affront, her hair moving gracefully with her. “The journey from King’s Landing must not have been a pleasant one. If the North disagrees with you so, why come at all?”

He was silent for a moment, staring at her through clouded eyes, his jaw working silently beneath them. “Any journey away from King’s Landing is a pleasant one”, he said shortly, and she was surprised to see his usual harshness at bay. She realized he meant it as a joke, but they both knew there was truth in his words.

She pulled herself up to her full height, which wasn’t much - not compared to him. “Why are you here, Clegane?”, she tried again.

He barked a short, bitter laugh, closing the distance between them in two long steps. She noticed his limp again, something she had witnessed the first time she set her eyes on him from atop the battlements, watching his great black courser bringing him to the gates of Winterfell. She wondered what the story was, there. He was an arm’s length away now, forcing her to crane her neck up at him. She could probably reach out to him if she -

“Where does one go, when their life’s desire has been fulfilled?”. He looked at her questioningly, as if really asking, the humor in his face gone.

It took her a moment to understand. Her eyes went wide as summer pools, and her next words came out as a whisper. “You killed him?”

He looked up at her in surprise, realizing that she had known instantly what he had meant. “I wish I had,” he sounded strangely empty. “He was killed at the battle of King’s Landing. That’s why I left for that shitheap, you know … to find him. And when I got there, they said he was already dead”.

Wordlessly, she moved to her chair. She sat down, smoothing out the folds of her robes, deep in thought. She glanced up at him again, as though just realizing he was still here.

“Sit,” the Queen commanded, and he sat across the small table from her slowly, suspiciously. He was so large that his knees almost touched hers, his wide stance distracting, fraying.

But the Queen was good at pretending. She poured some wine into two goblets. She raised hers, pale wrists catching the sunlight.

“To Kings and Mountains, the brothers we could not love”, she said mock-solemnly, and he barked a gruff laugh. They drank deeply, completely, looking anywhere but at each other.

The sat in silence for a moment, and then he leaned in across the table. “Heard you did yours in?”.

“Which one?”, she asked, and he barked another laugh. He saw that she had not meant it as a joke, then, and his brow furrowed, his expression dark.

“That little golden-haired cunt deserved what he got, aye, but I know you had less to do with it than they think. Littlefinger - he had the best whores this side of the Vale” - at this, she bristled, and he paused, a small frown curling his wasted lip. When she said nothing, he continued, “But he, too, got exactly what was coming to him. Ramsay, though ... I wish I could have -”, he stopped suddenly, reading her distaste from her posture.

The Queen looked away from him, staring into space, threads knotting in her chest fast, the tapestry of emotion locked in again, out of reach.

The next time the man spoke, his voice was low, rough, painted over with something she couldn’t quite make out. “It’s true what they say, then? What he did to you?”.

The Queen caressed her knuckles, so distanced from it all now that she was trying to pick apart the other emotion in his voice. Was it anger? Pity? Perhaps even ... regret?

She realized she hadn’t answered him, and she didn’t want to - not really, not like this. Blue eyes met grey when she spoke. “Ramsay got what he deserved, too. I gave it to him”.

“How?” His voice was fraying, too, she noticed.

“Hounds”, she said simply, a sad smile curling her pretty mouth.

He laughed again, a hearty laughter, bitter at the edges, and she realized she liked the sound of it. It had once scared her, just like that face, but the wildness that terrified her was now comfortable, familiar. It was even a little beautiful.

Finally, he cocked his head, taking her storm-clad figure in. “You’ve changed, Little Bird”. The Queen could sense awe in his voice, but also something that felt close to pride.

Even as her face flushed from hearing that moniker after all those years, she bristled. She was Queen, after all. “You cannot call me that, Clegane”.

It was his turn to flush. “Then you can’t call me Clegane”.

“And what would you have me call you?”, she asked, her voice low, challenging.

He stared deeply into her eyes for what felt like forever, and then scoffed, lowering his gaze. His bitterness was somehow exciting to her, full of possibility. She watched him as he wrapped his absurdly large hands around his goblet tightly, sloshing the wine around in it as he stared off into the distance, the conversation over as far as he was concerned.

“I prayed for you once, you know,” she began suddenly. “Asked the Mother to save you ... gentle the rage inside you. Seems it worked. I’m not the only one who has changed”.

He did not seem happy about it, but she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t be. “I don’t need your pity”, he said.

“You don’t have it”.

He scoffed, a growl low in his throat.

She ignored him, continued. “I asked my brother, the King, to keep an eye on you,” said the Queen. “When I heard …”, she sighed, looking down at her sleeves, tracing the direwolves with a pale finger. “When I heard you were leaving, I had hoped you would come to Winterfell.”

He looked up, surprised again, wine forgotten. “Stop playing with me, girl. I know you like to chew up your men, and I believe you have good reason. But -”

“Is that what you are, you think? One of my men?”. She blinked up at him coolly.

The color drained from his face, and she could see him clench his shaking hands.

“Why are you here?”. She wondered how many times he would make her ask him this question.

“Why did you wish I was here?”. He stared at her nakedly then, full of vulnerability, a man of five-and thirty suddenly only five.

She took a deep, steadying breath, thinking how far to go. “I want you to be the Lord Commander of my Queensguard”, she suddenly decided.

He scoffed again, but his shoulders drooped slightly, mouth sagging, a stormy bitterness inking his face with darkness. “I’m sure you require the services of a one-legged fighter as much as any other queen, but I’m still not a Knight, Your Grace”. He spat out the last word sarcastically, a tone she was much more accustomed to. Somehow, that gave her strength.

“It’s a strong leg, as far as legs go”, she said without pausing to think, and his expression darkened.

“Are you making fun of me, girl?”.

She shook her head in exasperation, angry at him, yes, but also at her own uncharacteristic grovelling. “I don’t care about your leg. You can still fight; we’ve all heard the stories of your bravery at King’s Landing. And you were part of Joffrey’s Kingsguard. The rules were bent for you once. I am Queen; I will bend them again”.

“I’d rather you bend something else for me, Your Grace,” he spat out, leaning towards her, eyes trained on her lips. She moved to speak, color rushing into her cheeks, but he slammed his hands on the table. “No, spare me your falsehoods, just this once”. He clenched his jaw, his voice low, like fingertips barely brushing steel. “Bugger all you Kings and Queens. I don’t want a place on your Small Council. I don’t want to write in your bloody White Books. All I know is to fight, fuck, and drink, Your Grace, and as far as I’ve heard, you don’t care for the last two”. His voice was suddenly loud, and she could sense the strain of his emotions in his posture. The Queen didn’t flinch, and instead gazed up at him the same as before, her steely blue eyes boring into his. She heard a loud cough from behind the solar door. Brienne, she thought, exasperatedly. The Queen’s Sworn Shield was asking her if everything was okay. It was their way.

The Queen turned away from the door. “Then why even come here?”. She spat out, sounding angry now, dangerous.

He shook his head again, his thick fingers worrying his eyes. Something broke in that silence, and all of a sudden, she realized he was close to tears. “I don’t know,” he said finally, his voice raw. “I guess I didn’t know where to go”.

“Well,” she said, softening at his pain, the threads around her heart dangerously close to tearing. “Seems to me like you did.” He scoffed again, but she shook her head at him. “I believe that, truly”.

“You don’t know what you believe, girl”, he sounded bitter, angry at his naked emotion. She reached out and took his large hand in hers. When he didn’t resist, she spoke.

“You know, I was looking for news of you all this time. They said you were raiding the Saltpans, raping women, killing children, and I did not believe it”. He gulped, tearing his eyes away from her as though he could not bear to look her way. “Then, Brienne told me you had died after Arya abandoned you at the Trident. ‘By the sword, as he had lived’, the Elder Brother told her, and I did not believe that either. I cried for you many nights, but it seems that time is over. What I do believe, Sandor, is that you are meant to be here, at Winterfell. With me”.

The man stared at her wordlessly, the storm in his eyes receding some.

He was quiet again for some time, throwing a shaky hand over his eyes. He drained his goblet, poured another, drained it again. When he spoke, his voice sounded strained, frail. “Aye, I was left to die like the dog I am. Taken to a septry, digging graves, confessing sins. I gave up drink there, for a while, took solace in the earth, in the silence. It could not last. Every night, I thought of -”. He paused, shaking his head as though it did not matter. “When I left, I knew I had two things to do. A new lease on life, you know, for a better death”. He laughed again, and this time, she did not like the sound of it.

“First, I had to kill Gregor. But by the end, he was as much my brother as King Bran is yours. And like everything else, he took for himself the pleasure of ending his life. And that took half my peace away, and I had only just begun searching for it”. He looked down at his hands, silent once more.

The Queen watched, disturbed. “And the second thing you thought to do? To keep your peace?”.

He stared at her again, this open stare that made her feel knotted and unfurled all at the same time. He coughed a little, a small bark that might have been a laugh, or a cry. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? I failed at it all. I should have killed Gregor. I should have protected your wolf-bitch of a sister, even though she left me to die. I should have -”. At this, he roughly took his hand away from hers. “I should have taken you away from King’s Landing that night”.

The Queen put her hand in her lap, steel once more. “I didn’t want to go”.

“But it would’ve been better. You could have been … saved”.

“I didn’t need you to save me,” she said simply. “I saved myself”.

The man surveyed her, as if seeing her for the first time. “Well,” he said, jaw clenching, a tear falling slowly down the burned wreck of his face. “Maybe you could have saved me.” He laughed again, a hollow sound, like something broken.

The Queen looked at the hulking man in front of him, large hands fidgeting at his knees, the ruins of his face contorting into something so vulnerable it made her heart hurt. The threads began fraying again.

All of a sudden, a question slipped from her lips before she could think clearly.

“Why did you kiss me that night? At the Blackwater?”.

“What?” The pain in his face suddenly gave way to confusion.

“At the Blackwater. You put a knife to my throat, stole a song from me, left me your bloody cloak, but before that … you kissed me.”

His expression darkened when she spoke of the knife, naked shame pulling at the corners of his mouth, but his face changed when she finished. “I … I never kissed you”.

“Yes, you did”, she said, blinking away exasperated tears. “You kissed me in my chambers, in the night, and then you left me.” She sounded angry again now, threads cut loose once and for all.

“I don’t know what you think happened that night, but I would fucking remember kissing you”. He sounded honest, the gruffness of his voice mixed in with a kind of accusation that made the Queen stop in her tracks.

They sat across from each other, staring unbelievingly into the others’ eyes. The Queen thought back to that night, of his rough lips cruel against her own - mottled, hard. Of his tongue in her mouth, his hair on her shoulders. She could still feel his chest pressing into his, his weight shifting the bed around her.

She settled on the obvious answer. “You were drunk”.

“I was always drunk. I can never be drunk enough for … that. Trust me, Little Bi-”.

“Don’t call me that”, she hissed, cracked porcelain. “And you’re wrong! I was a child and you put a knife to my throat and you kissed me!”. She got up suddenly, her robes unfurling behind her, and she realized she felt angrier about this then she had thought. It wasn’t just that she had compared every kiss in her life to this, her first. She realized she was also angry at the way he had treated her, frightening her even while he protected her, stealing away her first kiss even while he saved her from men who did much worse.

Their eyes were almost level now, with her standing at a distance and him still sitting. He spoke softly, then, like a storm tamed into a breeze. “I did things I am not proud of, it’s true. I was afraid, bitter, and I saw so much of myself in you. I was just like you when I was your age. Knights and songs and happy endings .. that was all I believed back then. I only wanted to save you from that, to force you to see that the world is not a song. But I never wanted to hurt you, truly. And I … I never thought about you that way, not back then,” he said, his voice a whisper, and she could pick out the lie in his last words instantly. He knew that too, and even before she gasped in disbelief, he was on his feet, his fighter’s reflexes making one swift motion of it - bad leg forgotten, chair overturned beneath him. He held out a hand in front of him, a silent plea.

“We both know that’s not true. You said a hound will die for you, but never lie to you. Was that a lie too? Is that why you always protected me? Is that why you came to my rescue all those times? Did you want to be my knight in shining armour?”. She spat out the last word, her hair flaring behind her as she shouted, as though to emphasize her anger. Her cheeks were flushed, pink blotches on pale skin. She heard Brienne coughing outside again, and the Queen ignored her a second time, rounding up on the man instead.

He was cowering from her, she realized, his eyes wild as he backed away to the wall behind him. He shook his head no, large hands held out in front of him as though to shield himself, as though she did not come up only to his shoulders. She moved closer until she was standing just a finger’s breadth away from him. She could smell wine on his breath, the sweat on his temples, a heady smell that filled her mind completely.

“Do I frighten you so much?”, she whispered, and he choked back a sob.

They stood in that dance for a while, the Queen boring into his eyes, in search of answers he did not think he could give, and the man looking down at her, his jaw working, trying not to touch any part of himself to her - difficult because she stood so close. She smelled like lemons and spring flowers, but underneath all that bright femininity, she also smelled a little like the earth he had moved in the Quiet Isle, rich and dark and all-encompassing.

When he finally spoke, his voice was raw. “What frightens me is that I failed. I didn’t protect you, did I, Little Bird?”. He looked at her quickly, but this time, she did not correct his use of that other name, from another life. She only stood there, panting slightly, eyes wet, the summer pools swept up in a storm of their own. He exhaled slowly, and carefully, hesitantly took her small hand in hers. She let him. When he spoke next, his voice was soft, eyes focused on the hard lines of her mouth. “All the times they beat you, tortured you, and I stood watching. All the times I wasn’t even there … hearing about you flying away from one twisted snare to another. It’s all I ever thought about in the Quiet Isle, all the buggering Elder Brother ever heard from me, as I came off my wine and my wound, trapped in pain. It was all consuming, Sansa. I wanted nothing more than to keep you safe, but I couldn’t. Because it’s true, you know, I’m not a kni-”

“But you were to me, in a small, twisted way!”, she shouted, tearing her hand away from his, her tears falling freely now. “And that’s what hurts me the most about it, Sandor. So many men have hurt me over the years. So many have taken things from me, things I will never get back, but I never expected them not to. You!”, she was shouting in his face now, her hands slamming into his chest, hard. He did not resist. “You were the only one I trusted in the entire kingdom then, and you betrayed me!”

“Little Bird, I -”

And then she kissed him, throwing herself at him without abandon, her small hands clutching fistfuls of his tunic, her body pressed up tight against him. He hesitated, first, and then growled a low moan deep in his throat. He kissed her back, wildly, drinking in her cries, his hands roaming over to her shoulders, down her back, resting on her rump. She could feel the burned lips beneath her tongue, so different from what she remembered. His lips were smooth, soft, not mottled and hard like when she was only a child. The weight of him, too, felt different - unfamiliar but welcome. She was standing on tiptoes, and he lowered himself slowly, trailing her hands back over her arms, knotting them into the auburn of her hair. They stood violently in the shade of this moment for a while - tasting, touching, holding on tight so as never to forget. She tasted the wine on his mouth, the heat from his tongue, and all of a sudden, with a muffled cry, she pushed him away.

She was panting heavily now, her hair a wild fire around her head, cheeks pink, eyes feverish. She saw as he sagged even lower, hands on his knees, licking his lips gently, dazedly, his mind locked up somewhere else. They stood this way for a while, and when he broke the silence, the man’s voice was fragile, ragged.

“Gods, girl. What the fuck was that?”

The Queen smoothed out her robes, ran her fingers through her hair. She was wordless for a while, shaking her head, an arm out in front of her as though to steady herself. She decided to settle on a half-truth. “I had to know you were telling the truth”, she said.

He stared at her as though she had gone quite mad. “And?”, he panted, his rough voice trembling.

“It seems like you were”. She sounded surprised herself, eyes fevered pools in the summer. He nodded aggressively, bitterly, as though to say, _I said as much, didn’t I?_

“Sandor”, she said, her voice small, tight.

“Aye,” he said raggedly, brushing a large hand over his face.

“You want to make up for the past? Protect me now, as you wished you had before. I know you don’t want a place on the Small Council. You don’t want to write in the Book of Brothers. But there are other ways you can serve me, fight for me, without all of that.” She waited for a reply, and when none came, she said, “Be my Sworn Shield, Sandor. I will make Brienne the Commander of my Queensguard in your stead”.

Silence, again. He scrubbed his face once more, still reeling from the darkness of her scent, the porcelain of her skin. The Queen sighed, misconstruing his silence. She looked down at her hands, laughed a humorless laugh, and then stared back into his eyes, fire meeting storm. “Save yourself some pain, Sandor, and give me what I want”.

She had expected another protest, another argument, but the man only looked at her, the storm at bay, for now.

He sighed shakily before he spoke. “I will be your liege man, if that is what you need me to be. I will shield your back and …” he paused, “and all the rest of that buggering oath. I am yours, Little Bird. I believe you have known it a while”.

Sandor took a tentative step towards his Queen, their eyes locked across the room.

Sansa smiled.


	2. What Wolves Do to Hounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Queen in the North is meeting with suitors. Her Sworn Shield Clegane is in a foul mood.

Sandor Clegane stood guard in the Great Hall, eyes surveying the room coldly. He saw a comely serving girl making her way through the oaken trestle tables, weaving in and out of the grasps of men who held her a bit too tightly as she walked by, and for a bit too long. He snorted softly under his breath, roving his eyes instead to the room at large.

The Queen was hosting a large banquet for some of the Northern houses. There was some talk of politics and trade, of course, but they all knew why this particular smattering of minor and major houses had been invited this evening. The Queen’s council had recommended she start looking for someone to wed - a strong name to align herself to, to produce heirs that would further reinforce the North in time, and perhaps even a man to love and call her own.

As was expected, Sandor was humorless today, appraising the men in their pompous furs and silks coldly, trying to be as intimidating as he could without drawing the ire of his Queen.

He stood a few steps behind her, and saw as the men she was to be introduced to this evening made their way to the head of the table, to sit with her for a while before another took his place. The same dance, every time. The Queen would be kind, polite, asking her questions and answering hers in what Sandor knew to be half-truths and courtesies. The men would rake their eyes over her - her soft lips, the curves of her body cinched in and lifted up in dark grey silks, her eyes burning ever brighter today. _Gods, she is beautiful,_ Sandor thought, and somehow that put him in an even fouler mood.

His leg hurt him, too. Fighting was one thing, your muscles taut with purpose, but standing still for hours on end had become difficult after his injury. The Queen had called for Maesters from all over the kingdom to help her Sworn Shield, and although his limp was less noticeable, and the pain mostly bearable, by the end of long days, he was usually glad to take the weight off his feet.

He watched as the next man came to sit next to her - a cocksure blond from House Cerwyn who touched his Queen on her shoulder as soon as he sat down. Sandor bristled, and he saw the Queen’s discomfort in the way she froze for an instant. He had become so good at reading her now; long days of watching someone without abandon will do that to you.

He could hear snippets of their conversation from underneath the din of the Great Hall. Soon, he realized the Cerwyn brat was the only one speaking, and the Queen’s posture became imperceptibly, increasingly, more deflated.

“Lord Eddard was an honorable man, truly. I was once at a joust -”

“ … lovely castle but Castle Cerwyn is much warmer in the winter, much more -”

“As far as accomplishments go, My Lord Father always told me I was his best son, and I - ”

Soon he was focusing again on what little of the Queen he could see. Her auburn hair was braided at the top of her head, the rest of it tumbling like fire onto her bare shoulders. His mind went to dark, carnal places, as it often did when he thought of his Queen, and he had let out small breath to release some of the tension in his body. Just then, the Queen turned, her blue eyes locked straight onto his, as though she had known exactly where he’d been looking.

“Clegane”, she said crisply. “Our friend from House Cerwyn is telling us of his skill at the Hand’s Tourney at King’s Landing. A lifetime ago, now!”, she giggled brightly, falsely. “He says he beat Ser Balonn Swann at archery. I was wondering if you remembered him? It would be quite exciting if my Sworn Shield knows first-hand the prowess of our treasured guest”. She looked at him then, eyes full of dark humour, and he felt a swell of something like hope in his chest.

He looked at the man, ignoring the slight twitch in his face as Sandor turned his scars towards him, and cocked his head slightly, as though deep in thought.

“Cerwyn? No, Your Grace, it was Anguy from the Dornish Marches who defeated Ser Balonn. Perhaps he means another?” He addressed his Queen, throwing in a small frown to complete the little dance his Queen had so deliciously thrown his way.

“Oh,” said the Queen, pouting her pink lips. “Clegane here won the joust that day, did you not? I surround myself with the best men, of course, and what a spectacular display of courage, he was!”, and she gave him a small smile, enough to reignite the storm inside him. She turned back to her guest coolly. “I suppose you misremembered, my Lord”.

He flushed. “Perhaps”, he said lamely. “I have been to so many Tourney’s, you know, they kind of seem to blend -”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she said archly. “But look - I think that is Lord Dustin coming up to us now. The time flew by, my Lord. I did not even get a chance to say more than a few words to you!”. And with that, she turned away from him, deep in conversation with her Maester.

Again and again men came up to the Queen, hoping to impress and enchant, but Sandor saw that she was at best annoyed and at worst, bored. She did not engage him directly again, but once or twice, in the quiet moments before one man left and another came, she turned to him, raising her eyebrows or pouting her lips - a little review of the meeting, just for him. By the time the feast was almost at an end, the sourness in Sandor’s temperament had eased immensely. His leg seemed to hurt less, too.

There was a flurry to his left, and Sandor stiffened, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword in a flash. He saw who it was and relaxed. A tall woman in grey armour pushed her way through to the table, flanked by a young man who looked almost sheepish. It suited him, a soft air of befuddlement about him. His brown curls tumbled down past his ears, his sharp jaw accuentating the smooth, hard lines of his body, the ease of his mouth.

“Lord Holt, Your Grace,” said Brienne, now Lord Commander of the Queensguard.

“I am so sorry to keep you waiting, Your Grace”, he said bowing, that slightly embarrassed, harried look still on his face.

Before the Queen could speak, Brienne cut in. “There was a tussle outside, Your Grace. Some swellswords could not keep their hands to themselves, it seems, troubling the maids. By the time I got there, Lord Holt had already made an example of them. I think the apology must come from me, for not getting there sooner”.

Brienne looked ashamed, and Sansa smiled at the raw earnestness in her voice. “All is forgiven, of course. I am grateful for you, always.” Brienne blushed. The Queen turned to the man. “And it seems I am grateful to you as well, now, for keeping our women safe”. She smiled at him, and Sandor saw that his actions had deeply touched her. He shuffled on his feet, the pain in his legs surging up again, tethering him to the ground.

Before leaving, Brienne threw a cold look towards Sandor, and his previous humour had shrunk so quickly that, despite his better judgment, he curled his lip at her in distaste. He usually tried to be civil with her, because he knew his Queen loved her dearly. But some days were darker than others, and this was shaping up to be the darkest one he had had in a while.

As Brienne left, Sandor could not help but train his ears on the conversation happening in front of him. Lord Holt was charming, inquisitive. He asked the Queen questions, and chewed on his lips thoughtfully after she had answered. The Queen seemed interested in his life too, and more than once he heard her giggle into her pale hands, color creeping up her neck. Sandor’s jaw clenched, and he instead began to furiously survey the room. His eyes latched again onto the serving girl from earlier, her black hair swept away from her face, falling in tumbles down her thin shoulders. He scoffed bitterly, and to his surprise, the Queen turned and, once more, looked straight back at him.

Their eyes met, and she saw the storm hooding his features, his posture suggesting a preference for his good leg. Her eyes darkened, her lip curling into a small frown, and she turned away from him resolutely, throwing her attentions once again on the man to her right.

It did not escape Sandor that the feast went on longer than it was supposed to, longer even than the time by which the Holt Lordling had been late to the table. She never ate much during these feasts, but he noticed, too, that she was drinking more than usual, skin flushed, her words coming out less guarded than usual. When the Queen finally raised the calls for the end to the feast, the man leaned into her ear, their bodies a hair’s breadth away, and he spoke something that made her laugh deeply. He touched two fingers to the inside of her upturned wrist, and said, “I hope we meet again, Your Grace”. The Queen blushed.

Sandor followed her out of the hall, keeping a dark distance between the two of them, aware of the riotous pain in his leg, and of the clumsy sounds his uneven gait made on the stone floor.

As they approached the Queen’s chambers, he turned around, standing sentry at her door.

She looked up at him in surprise. “Will you not come in?”, she asked. He could not eat while on duty, of course, and he never liked eating in the halls with the others either. One day, as she walked down the stone corridors to her room, the Queen had almost walked into a serving girl bringing vast trays of food to the Sworn Shield’s quarters after a particularly lavish feast. She had insisted he eat with her instead, in her chambers. Since then, it had become their favored custom to eat together after feasts, which ended up being more days than not. Soon, Sandor had noticed that she ate less and less during these feasts, to save her appetite for their private meals. In that time, their friendship had grown, and although the conversation was always light, even playful, it was never as impassioned or fiery as their first meeting just a while ago. Neither wanted to bring it up, it seemed, and they subsisted in comfortable conversation and quiet smiles.

Now, standing outside her chambers, he regarded her coldly. “Not hungry”, he growled, and her face fell.

“When did you last eat?”, she asked.

He scoffed, ignoring her, the growl low in his throat, his feet shuffling his bulk from one to the next.

The Queen bristled. “Well, I didn’t eat at the feast, and Tira has brought some food in for us already. And also,” she added coolly, as she looked fleetingly at his large calves, “It seems to me like you need a place to rest that leg of yours”.

His eyes darkened. “Well, it seems to me like you had enough company for a night, Your Grace,” the last words were bitter, harsh.

He saw her eyes flash with something dark, and it wasn’t all too displeasing. “Clegane,” she said dangerously, “You are to eat with me”.

She turned her face to the doors of her chamber, and he could feel a low charge emanating off her skin, winding like tendrils through her hair.

He scowled, muttering a ‘bugger this’ under his breath. If the Queen heard him, she did not show it. The man sighed. She never called him Clegane in private. He knew that was her way of saying it was a royal command, not a friendly request. He shook his head and opened the door, arm outstretched, and he stood so tall that she didn’t even have to duck underneath him as she stepped into her chambers, chin tucked up defiantly.

They sat in silence, making their way slowly through the plentiful food at the small table, avoiding each others’ gaze. She could feel a tension building in his body, and she saw him stare openly at her naked shoulders, at the soft tumblings of her hair as she reached toward him for some food, at the moistened pink of her hungry mouth. He was getting more and more agitated as the silence grew, she knew, but she would not be the first to break it.

Sansa looked up at his face, trying to read the expression in the storms of his eyes. She noticed, like she had for a month, how his head always seemed to be turned to the door to the chambers, off to his left, her right. In the beginning, she had thought that he had not wanted to be in here with her, that he longed to leave this cloying pretense of happiness and instead charge out, Stranger flying wildly beneath him, into the vast unknown to slay demons that might never be at bay. Soon, she had come to realize that he did that in other places, too, in corridors, in the godswood, as they stood opposite each other on the battlements.

He was hiding his burns from her, she now knew, and the thought made her sad.

She did not know what to say to him about that; it seemed like a dirty whisper that she had stumbled upon accidentally - something she should not have known. To her, his scars bore witness to the darkness she knew nestled solidly in place inside him. But it was more than that, really. They made him look fierce to have received them, brave to have lived with them all these years, and yes, she thought … they made him look strangely exciting. _Gods, he is beautiful,_ she thought, biting her lip absently.

Sansa ate slowly, and his restlessness began to heighten. She felt his good leg begin to move under the table, the little shakes distracting, fraying. He had taken off his armour to eat, and every now and then he would stretch the aches of the day away, his tunic stretching taut over his muscles, straining, yearning. Soon, as always when they dined together, she was enthralled by his big hands, soft black hair snaking its way into his sleeves, his broad fingers taking apart bread slowly, with a purposeful intent that made her face feel hot. She wondered, not for the first time, what the rest of him looked like, and she had to squeeze her thighs together, squirming uncomfortably in place.

As she put out her hand for her goblet of wine, he suddenly spoke up. “Haven’t had enough of that already, Your Grace?”.

She paused, snapping out of her daydream. “What?”, she asked.

“Drank half a flagon already, didn’t you? Perhaps you miss the jokes more than you miss the wine,” he sounded bitter, and also a little embarrassed.

Sansa made an exasperated sound, a little embarrassed herself. “Don’t speak to me like that,” she said, and she sounded so hurt that his heart twinged a bit, but that only exacerbated his anger.

“I’ll speak to you however I damn well please!”, he said loudly, getting up from his chair in a flash. It always surprised her when he did that, moving so quickly for a man of his bulk. He rounded the table, and she stood up, too - ice against storm.

“I know what your lot do. Throw a little joke here, a little look there - a bone for your dog. Don’t think I don’t notice it, but always a chirped order at the end of it. Well, bugger you, Your Grace, but I won’t bark for you anymore”, he barked, and despite herself, Sansa smiled.

“You sound a little bitter, Clegane,” she said, eyes flashing with more than just humour. “Perhaps you don’t approve of my Holt Lordling?”.

“Fuck your Holt cunt and fuck you too,” he spat out. She regarded him coolly, arching an eyebrow at him, opening her moist lips to softly purr two words: “Would you?”, she asked.

That angered him even more, and his chest heaved. She noticed they were breathing in sync now, touching, not touching, again and again, and she also noticed something else. She could feel his manhood close to her, a whisper of stone, so close she could almost feel its heat. She continued to smile up at him as she stepped imperceptibly closer.

“What the fuck are you smiling about, girl?”. She could sense that her move forward had not gone unnoticed, and he stepped just as imperceptibly back, his gaze clouded over, the storms threatening conquest.

“I’m not a girl anymore, Sandor”, and, against his better instincts, it seemed, his eyes darted quickly to her breasts, the curve of her hips.

“Aye, I saw enough of that today,” he said, and his voice sounded choked, raw. He tore his eyes from her face resolutely, as though a decision had slowly thunked into place in his head. She heard him exhale shakily, a sound that made her squeeze her thighs together again.

She moved forward, tilting her head so their lips were close enough for her to smell the salt on him, the musk off his neck. “Sandor, I want you to show me something”, she breathed into him.

He moved his head down towards her, a palpable heat encircling them both now. “What?”, he rasped.

“What hounds do to wolves,” she replied, and her voice was husky, thick with lust.

The storm broke. He grabbed her, two strong hands on the small of her waist, and before she knew it, she was in his arms.

“Aye, I’ll show you, Little Bird,” he spoke into her hair, his voice raw. “You will sing for me where no one else has heard you before”.

He moved with her as though she was only a plaything, and took quick strides to her bedroom, just off her main chambers. He put her down on the bed - a little roughly, despite himself. She sat up to meet him, a low moan caught in her throat, and she tugged at his tunic for a few seconds before he realized what she meant. He took it off in one fluid motion, and Sansa gasped. In another life, he may have mistaken her gasp for one of disgust - the scars lacing his skin in cruel diagonals, silver, red. Puckered flesh met mottled wound, but her gasp, he knew, was for all the rest of him.

His chest was broad, dense muscle rippling as he moved, his hair a dark pelt that wove its way down into his breeches. She put her small hands up against his unyielding flesh, on the hard planes of his body, and pressed into him, whispering fingers tracing the little curls of black hair smattering his breadth. He looked down at her wide eyes, her expression of awe, and more of him broke, became untethered.

It was her turn to undress next, and he was unsurprised to see she was not shy about it. Nothing about her was ashamed or easily embarrassed now, and he felt a dark excitement in the pit of his stomach. When she had flung her gown off to one side, she looked down at her smallclothes, and up again at him. Again, it took him a few moments to realize what she meant, and he worked with her to unlace and unburden her until she lay truly naked before him.

He let out a breath, ragged and low. She was beautiful - creamy skin, her teats high and full, the firm lines of her stomach throwing the soft flesh of her hips into sharper relief. He looked hungrily down her body, the auburn curls below like small fires stoking his need.

He bent towards her, knotting his hands in her soft hair, a low growl escaping his lips as he put them to the nape of her neck. Sansa felt gooseflesh prickle her skin, felt her nipples harden as she felt his touch all over, her body responding to his in a way she had never thought possible. The ruins of his lips grazed her shoulders, and she felt her wetness at her thighs. They kissed - hot, searching kisses that sparked storms within them, his large hand cupping her breasts, squeezing a handful of her rump even as she slid her small hands down his back.

“Sandor, please,” she whispered thickly, and he knew what she wanted. He took one of her nipples in his mouth, the burned half of his lips smooth, ticklish, while the other half teased and sucked and grazed. He was lying over her now, supported on one elbow to keep his massive weight off him. She moaned slowly, bucking under him with pleasure, her hands knotted into his hair.

“Please …”, she whispered again, and he moved his free hand down, sliding it over the swells of her breasts, the planes of her stomach, until they rested on her soft curls. He cupped his hand over her mound, squeezing gently, feeling her squirm under him. She yelped, and he ran his fingers up and down her slick folds, slowly, deliberately. “Gods, you are wet. Is this for me, Little Bird?”, he asked softly, and she could feel him smile against her shoulder when she cooed in response.

Soon, his thick fingers found their way to the delicate pearl nestled above her folds. He stroked her there, softly, so softly, in steady circles, until she bucked under him dangerously, her ragged breaths bringing to him a pleasure no battle-weary victory had ever offered. They kissed, then, and she wrapped one long leg around his back, squeezing him, as though attempting to pin him to her. His hair fell over hers as they kissed, black on auburn, and his mind on other things, he thought stupidly of tigers - no, of wolves. As he circled her little nub with a coarse finger, she mewled softly into his mouth, and he drank up her cries and her pleasure with greed. Her body tensed under him, and he stopped quickly, reveling darkly in her frustrated cry.

“Not like this, Little Bird. I need to taste you”. She only panted, shallow little breaths that made his manhood hurt.

He slid down the length of her lithe body, his mouth trailing kisses all over, until he reached the curls. She opened up to him, a ragged sigh tearing from her throat, showing him folds slick with her desire. He slid his fingers down the length of her slit again, and then brought his mouth to her. She bucked under him at once, and he held the tops of her thighs down with one large arm across her, the other hand kneading her arse from underneath. He drank deeply, lapping at the honey she made for him, his tongue working deftly, slowly, surely, towards her pleasure. He could feel it building up inside her once more, the quiet mewls turning into whispered pleas, the whispered pleas into ragged cries.

“Yes, Sansa. Howl for me,” he whispered into her even as he licked her, and soon, she came violently beneath him. She pulled at his hair, her legs quivering, torso bucking again and again as the pleasure ripped through her like a storm. He gave her a final, gentle lick, and she quivered underneath him again, and his heart swelled with a kind of strangely tender pride.

They lay that way for a few moments, his mouth still close to her mound, both breathing shallow breaths. When Sansa could speak again, she realized they were holding hands on either sides, his grip strong, warm.

Suddenly, she got up, forcing him to sit up, too. She straddled him gently, arms around his broad shoulders. He breathed deeply into her hair as she moved to his neck to nip at him, graze his earlobes with her teeth, clutch the hair at his chest. She moved to kiss him, once more, and he turned the good side of his face to hers, giving her a half-kiss. She paused, shaking her head, their eyes locked. She pressed a gentle hand to his ruined cheek, turning it towards her.

“No,” she said. “All of you”. He nodded softly, his eyes bright, his mouth a hard, resolute line.

And then, they were kissing again in full, both his hands on her rump again. He squeezed here there, pulled her cheeks apart softly again and again until she could feel herself dripping her desire onto him. His manhood was hard beneath her, pressing into her mound with insistence, the heat from it making her squirm even through his breeches. She grinded herself against his girth in a way that tore a growl from his lips. She hooked her long fingers into his breeches, and whispered urgently into his ears.

“Get those off, Clegane,” she said, and she could all but scramble off him as he lifted himself up to make quick work of his breeches. She was now splayed out on the bed beside him, and as he sat back down, she could not help but gasp again. He was massive, bigger than anyone she had ever been with. Without thinking, she wrapped her hand around his girth, and let out a shaky breath when she could not even come close to wrapping her long fingers around it. He hissed as she touched him. “Gods, Little Bird, you don’t know what you fucking do to me”.

She looked up at him, his eyes grey fires, his expression dazed, and she felt her wetness even more acutely now, made more insistent by the hot need between her thighs. “Do you know, Sandor?”, she whispered thickly, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

“What, Little Bird?”.

“What wolves do to hounds?”.

He groaned loudly as she threw him back, straddling him as she used one small hand to trail his manhood down the length of her folds - once, twice. Slowly, she sank down onto him, feeling her body stretched in ways she had never experienced before. It burned, slightly, but her desire made it so that the overwhelming sensation was one of pressure, fullness, completion. She moved slowly at first, grinding back and forth, his entire length a pleasurable ache inside her. She began to slide up and down him, then, deliberately, tortuously, and she heard his moans caught in his throat. He bucked underneath her, grabbing her hair, circling her entire waist with his hands, and whispering her name in tortured sighs even as he pushed repeatedly into her.

Sansa felt heady with power. The sheer size of the hulking man beneath her, the large hands that could easily crush her throat, the ripple of muscles smattering every inch of him, all felt dangerous, exciting, and because of that, she felt a lusty sense of strength that she had never really felt before. She was conquering a beast, planting her victory straight into his core. And even while she relished this thought, it pulled her mind elsewhere, to darker nights, other men, conquests that weren’t hers. Suddenly, without thinking, she whispered, “Stop”.

All of a sudden, he did, a growl tearing from his throat.

They stared at each other in the warm glow of the braziers - both panting, both confused.

Seeing her expression, the storm cleared away from his eyes in an instant.

“What is it, Little Bird?”.

She didn’t answer, instead just sat breathing heavily atop him. He looked alarmed, moving gently to sit up, going soft inside her already. He put gentle arms on her shoulders, peering earnestly into her eyes.

“Little Bird? Why did you ask me to stop?”.

She looked at him then, her eyes feverish, bright. “I’m not sure,” she said dazedly. “Perhaps to see if I could. Or perhaps to see if you would”.

With that, she reached out to kiss him with a violence, and he became immediately hard inside her. They took their pleasure, again, rougher this time - ragged, lustful, loud. She moved with him until she could think of nothing else, and as they came crashing to their peaks together, he cried out her name over and over again.

When they were finished, she nestled into his shoulder and spoke his name softly. When he murmured a reply, Sansa turned to look into his eyes.

“I don’t need a Lordling, Sandor. I have a hound”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was way smuttier than I had intended, phew!
> 
> Please let me know what you thought. Comments keep me sane!

**Author's Note:**

> I could not find much about Queen Sansa and her Sworn Shield Clegane, so I thought I'd write it myself. This work handles the characters as I think they would act in the books, but I also incorporated some show elements.
> 
> I love SanSan but find some of its elements difficult, and this is me trying to figure it out, I guess.
> 
> Comments are nutrients; please tell me what you think! This is my first piece. More coming :)


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